


And Their Walls Came Tumbling Down

by Lion_of_Eben



Series: The Bastards of Westeros [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: (Poor Bran), Bran is sad, F/M, GUYS, Jon is sad, Literally a decade after ADWD, Post-Series, THE BEST, These two are the best ship in the world, Westeros divided into 3 kindgoms post winter apocalypse, sex in the great outdoors
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-23
Updated: 2017-07-24
Packaged: 2018-07-16 18:59:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 17,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7280758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lion_of_Eben/pseuds/Lion_of_Eben
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Are you here to help me or kill me?” </p><p>“I...” she managed, finally. Her voice was rough from disuse and the chill. “I'd not dare to lay a hand on the King of Winter.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Val I: The Trudge

Val had never seen a more lonely sight: the solitary man and his wolf companion trekking through the cold wilderness. The only animal life left here, save for herself. She shivered as she watched them trudge onwards. The winds were cold, but not nearly so bad as they had been only a few weeks ago. Footprints in spring snows and cold mud combined with half-frozen slosh, and the sight of a back of an enormous glittering-white direwolf made tracking them easy. If Lord Snow knew she had spent weeks following him, he paid her no mind. She could not see him clearly, had always maintained a certain distance so as not to be spotted, and as a result all she knew of him was a dark shape, a shadow, a shade moving silently through the frost-crusted trees. Some days he rode with his spine straight and shoulders square, all that southern military discipline evident even in the line of his neck. Other days, he seemed much as he had the last time she had seen him up close: weary, broken, devastated. She wondered what he thought of on those days, his living or his dead? 

One day, Val was sure she had been discovered. She had overslept, and in her rush to catch sight of him once more, she nearly brought the whole of the North to attention of her presence. Had it been a clear day, her late morning would have been of no consequence. But it had been snowing, and if Lord Snow had a sufficient head start, his prints would have been quickly buried. Yet, despite all her great crashing, Snow still ignored her. She wondered if he was playing with her, waiting for her to to fall into complacency, waiting for her to sleep too deeply one night. He probably didn't have a reason to harm her, but... Well. Lord Snow did not always need a _reason_ to harm someone. 

If Val counted correctly, it had been five weeks since Lord Snow set off in search of his brother. “The Broken Lord,” some called him. “The Winged Wolf,” she'd heard once, from the sleek little crannogwoman Stark had ridden south with. With the dead well and slain, Lord Snow had decided to scour up to even the northernmost lands to find the missing boy. A foolish errand, she thought, though if someone had told her Dalla were still alive, trapped alone in the snows... Val knew she would have gone as well. Why Lord Snow felt it imperative that he undertake this grueling task alone was a mystery she had yet to solve. 

But gods, this mission was dull. She had little better to do than to wonder if Lord Snow still wore the blacks of the Brotherhood or if the dark of his clothes only seemed so black next to all the white that surrounded them. She very well might go mad if the coloring fluctuated from dark to slightly-less-dark one more... _Damn._

“Lady Val, if I bore you, you are always free to return south.” 

Gods. Gods. That voice. Weeks of loneliness suddenly seemed to pour forth, now that there was someone finally speaking to her. Now that he was finally speaking to her. 

Val opened her mouth, but no sound came out. Her heart was in her throat. Her fists clenched. He was looking at her, walking towards her, leaving his horse where he had dismounted. 

“Are you here to help me or kill me?” Solemn. Always so solemn, his eyes were. _Cold and dangerous and fierce, as well,_ she reminded herself. This was not the boy who had protected her from looters as she midwifed for Dalla. This was a man transformed by winter and death. 

“I...” she managed, finally. Her voice was rough from disuse and the chill. “I'd not dare to lay a hand on the King of Winter.” 

Lord Snow breathed out a sound, something between sarcastic, self-deprecating laughter and genuine amusement. “I told my sister I wanted this done without...” 

He didn't finish his thought, only raked a hand through his dark hair. 

“How long have you known?” she whispered, her throat more sore than she had realized.

“That you've been following me? Since about a mile from Winterfell.” Lord Snow's monster glided gracefully next to him. The great beast stood as tall as Snow. 

Anger flared strong in her belly. He had been playing with her. “All this time... How did you know?” 

That slow, half-smirk of his crept along the corner of his mouth and he slid his fingers into his wolf's fur. _Of course._

“Why didn't you say anything? What if I were here to kill you?” The smirk grew. An eyebrow raised. The insufferable arrogance of the man. “In your sleep?” she demanded. Val could have easily slit his throat any number of times.

“Ghost would have taken you down in seconds, Lady Val. Since you are here, though, I'll ask you not to try to behead me as I sleep. I rather think I prefer you living.” Lord Snow seemed half-distracted, as though her arrival into his confined existence had been more than enough excitement for a lifetime. 

“You have my word for today, though I shan't make promises for the future,” she replied. 

Ghost let out a long, low whine, a mournful little sound altogether too pathetic for a creature of his size. Snow removed his hand from his beast's fur, and the animal loped to Val. The direwolf's eyes were an intense red, and they held an intelligence that Val was uncomfortable attributing to non-human life. The creature assessed her before leaning down to nuzzle his nose against her shoulder, all soft affection and wolfish loyalty. 

“And here I thought you didn't dare lay a hand on a king,” he murmured, half mocking, half pensive. 

“Aye, but I made no promises about my knife,” Val responded, stroking her fingers down Ghost's chest. The direwolf huffed into her hair, a soft snuffling sound, before wandering away into the trees. 

“Return to Winterfell, Lady Val. I'll not have you with me for this.” 

“Your sister asked that I go where you go, Lord Snow. King Jon. Whatever your name, she asked that I follow her brother-cousin to make sure you return home. I'll not return to Winterfell until you do.” 

He had a pained look on his face, those cool grey eyes stormy under a furrowed brow, his mouth tight, his jaw square. His hair had grown longer than she had ever seen it, and he was, in fact, not wearing his blacks. Lord Snow took a step toward her, and she retreated a step away from him. His pained look morphed into a full frown. Jon Snow had never been a particularly tall man, and he had always been slight. But he had grown some since she had first laid eyes on him, and she had seen the way he moved with a sword in his hand, as though he'd been made to cut through men as easily as a fish glides through water. 

“I'll not hurt you, Val,” he said, soft, sincere, almost wounded.

_I don't believe you._

“Maybe so,” she responded. “But you Kings of Winter are cold men, and the winds haven't died yet.” 

Lord Snow huffed at that, a bit like his wolf only moments before. “Go south, Lady Val. I'll not have you, and neither will the wilderness.” 

She wondered what he thought of her, standing here in the snow, the dark of the trees peeking through diamond-dust frost. Even as he was dismissing her, he was impassive. Val thought for a moment that the man had not felt anything deeply since his brothers in black betrayed him. But it was only a moment, and a foolish moment at that. Val had seen his grief. His grief, his loneliness. His rage. Lord Snow's icy eyes may have hidden the hot blood of a man that ran through his veins, but it was there. And that was what she needed to fear. 

“I am a free woman, Lord Snow. You may be king of those great stone wrecks you southerners build, but you are no king over me. If you won't have me, you'll suffer me.” 

Lord Snow walked towards her, then. Not just a single step, but long strides, and after her earlier retreat, Val resolved to stand strong. He was close now, close enough for her to see the individual hairs in his beard, the chapped skin of his lips, the jagged scars above his eye. 

“Why are you here? What did Sansa promise you?” 

“If I return you, she'll bring my nephew home. He's a northern boy, of the free folk. He should know that. He should learn what it means.” 

“Gilly is a wildling. She'll raise him.”

“Gilly can come, if she'd like. She's raised him for years, and she's like to feel attached. But I want a boy of my blood to be raised with his people. You Starks, you southerners who think you've been raised in the northern ways... You're not free, but you worship the true gods and you remember some of the old ways. Far better for him to be raised among you than in some far southern castle where the lordlings don't know what it is to be men.” 

“I will not turn south until I find my brother. It may take years. The rest of my life, even. Go home, Val. Ride to the Reach for your boy yourself.” Lord Snow whistled for his horse, mounted easily when the mare trotted to him. 

“You can't stop me following you,” she said softly, her voice nearly a whisper. 

His heels pressed gently into his mare's sides, and the horse stepped forward in an easy walk. Ghost melted into sight, a wisp of faded color falling into step with the horse. 

“No,” he sighed. “I suppose I can't.”


	2. Bran I: The Lost Prince

It had been years since life had fled the north. He saw the Wall fall through the eyes of a crow, one that Lord Bloodraven had used for years. Slipping into the crow's skin had been easier than dreaming his wolf dreams, and soon he learned that he could fly over the earth, searching for news. Searching for life. The singers had withdrawn from the cave long ago, before the Wall fell. Or perhaps they simply ventured deeper into the cave than Bran had known was possible. He could not tell. If they remained with him, he could not see nor hear nor sense them at all. 

Brandon Stark was alone. 

After the Wall fell, the dead marched south, sweeping through Bran's homeland, violating holdfasts and killing anyone they saw. It was retribution, he knew. Retribution for the forgetfulness of man, for their faithlessness, for their insatiable hunger. When they arrived at Winterfell, Bran watched from the skin of his crow as a man who looked like his father burned the wave of corpses. He saw a woman who looked like his mother attending to the wounded. In his dreams, he saw a kraken drowning, a lizard lion returned home, a melting throne, a shade made to sleep. And when Bran woke, he was still alone in this cave under the tree. 

Bran had seen his brother once, his bastard half-brother who had taken the black. He had watched as the cold, long face of a Stark prayed before the gods of his father and took the wild men away with him. Bran wondered what Jon had done with them. He hadn't wanted to shed blood in a holy place, but outside of the grove wasn't holy... 

Bran saw Jon again, with his great direwolf beside him. Bran couldn't tell where he was, just that there were still snows. His brother looked older now, colder, harder, so very similar to their father. Bran could not tell if he was seeing Jon as he existed in the moment, or if this had been a passing moment in time years ago, or if it had not yet come to pass. 

_Maybe he'll find me. Maybe I won't be here forever..._ No. No, Bran could not think that way. Hope was somehow so much more crushing than reality. Long years he had spent with the gods, and long years he would remain.


	3. Jon I: The Bastard King

He was being haunted by a soundless creature made of honey and light. Before, when she thought she was unseen, the whole thing seemed so blandly amusing, something innocent and guileless that belonged to his life before he first stepped through the gates of Castle Black. Now, Val was his silent companion and her presence irked, chafed, needled him though Jon could think of no reason her company should irritate so. Sometimes Jon thought it was because of Ghost. Val would pet him whenever he drew near her (which he did with increasing frequency) and the damn wolf would thrill so at her touch that Jon could feel shades of it through the bond. Other times, Jon wondered if it might be her long periods of silence, in which he would inadvertently match his breathing to hers and measure time by her footfalls, somehow making the days pass even more slowly. Jon only grew angrier when she spoke, though he did not understand why. 

More like than not, Jon's frustrations had less to do with her and more to do with his restlessness, his sleeplessness. At night he dreamed of weirwoods with his brother's face, whispering his name. He dreamed of the dead clawing at his flesh, of frozen wraiths trapping him in ice, of moonless hunts that yielded no prey and left him feeling empty and aching. Jon would awake as exhausted as he had been before he lay his head down, and then his memories would plague him during his waking hours as well.

_Lay me to rest, Snow._

“How did you know I was bored?” 

Val's voice startled him, even though he was acutely aware of her presence. She had been gliding beside him on foot for days, yet he could not remember when she had last addressed him. 

“How did I know you were bored...?” Jon almost felt foolish, unable to even respond to the only question she had posed him. 

“When you first spoke to me. Days ago. How could you tell I was bored? It was the first thing you said to me.” 

“You looked it.” 

“You were facing away from me.”

“Was I?” He would rather not speak of this. Jon had called out to her that day because he could not help it. Val was beautiful and lonely and so very, very close, but he regretted his decision to include her in his search. 

“You were on your horse, Lord Snow. You were facing forward, and I was behind you.” 

“I'm sure you are mistaken, Lady Val.” Jon tried to make his tone final, but Val ignored his attempts at imperiousness. 

“I am sure that I'm not, Lord Snow.” 

Jon ignored that, intent on letting the matter drop. And for a moment, she complied. Until she asked, “Can you read minds, Lord Snow?” 

The question, nearly as absurd as the genuine curiosity in her voice, forced a laugh from his chest before he responded with a definitive “No.”

“Can your monster?” 

“Ghost?” Jon questioned, humor still tinting his voice. “No. He's a direwolf, not a woodswitch.” 

She was silent for a moment. And then: “You were in another animal, weren't you?” 

_Fuck._

“I told you that I can't skinchange any other animals besides Ghost.” His tone was too defiant, though, the way it had always been when he was a boy, caught in a lie. 

“You lied,” she said, her voice a high, cheerful trill. 

“Aye,” Jon said ruefully. “I did.” 

“Why?”

“Because I wanted to hide the truth.”

“Aren't you clever?” Val commented dryly. “What was it? I haven't seen anything alive since we passed the ruins.” 

By “the ruins,” Val meant where the Wall once stood, though it was nothing more than a pile of stones and melting ice, now. Jon had tried to scour the remains of the Nightfort, but there was nothing to find but cold rocks. Not even bones. _Not even her._

“There's a crow. She's been used before, I think. Easy to slip into.” 

Val laughed, a clear, warm sound that did not belong in the frozen wasteland. “Lord Crow,” she teased, “slipping into a Lady Crow. Do you love her even though she wasn't a maid when you first had her?” 

Jon huffed out a reluctant sound of amusement before falling into contemplative silence. She _had_ been used before, of that he was certain. He wondered if it had been Bran. He hoped it had been Bran. 

_How many eyes does Lord Bloodraven have? A thousand eyes and one._

Jon had been using the crow to search for signs of other life, but the bird had not returned in days. He was wandering blind for the first time in weeks, and suddenly the whole trek seemed impossibly hopeless. _I'll die before I search the whole north._ Jon had not seen Bran in twelve years, and all he could think of his brother was a horrible memory of Bran lying in bed. Sick, injured, helpless. Jon had thought he would never see his brother alive again, even all those years ago when the child had been breathing in front of him. And now...

_He's north, north, north. Trapped in a tree beneath a cave. North...._

Jon felt the bond twitch. Ghost was returning. His wolf fell into step beside Val, as he always did, and Val hummed softly as she threaded her fingers through Ghost's fur. Ghost shivered at the touch, panting happily, and Jon almost growled as he felt traces of it along his own skin. Neither man nor beast were touched in affection nearly often enough, and annoyance flooded Jon at the acute reminder. 

“Was it because you didn't want them to know? Your other family, I mean. The silver-haireds.”

Jon dismounted before he knew what he was doing, immediately crowding himself into Val's space. She tried to retreat from him, stumbling back a step before Ghost's mass prevented her from moving farther away. Val's breath gusted from her in frozen clouds, and in the moment it took Jon to watch his own breath engulf hers, to become intrigued with the concept of them touching in the least concrete of ways, his rage dissipated. 

“Never speak of them again. Not to me, not in my hearing.” His voice was more severe than he meant it to be, tone cold and imposing. Jon noticed, then, her white-knuckled grip around the hilt of her knife. He stepped away, slowly so as not to startle her. _Threatening a woman now, bastard?_

Jon wiped his hand over his face, pressed his thumb into the corner of his eye where his head began to ache. _I am sick unto death of guilt and grief._

“Get on the horse,” Jon ordered after moments of long silence. Val blinked at him, her brow creasing in suspicion. “I've been unchivalrous, making you walk while I ride. Get on.” 

Val complied, but only, Jon suspected, because she had been following him on foot for weeks. She had lost her horse at the pile of rocks that used to be the Nightfort, the animal refusing to climb over the cursed stones. Jon had only gotten his mare over by coaxing his mind into hers and making her travel through the path he forged. 

“I promised not to hurt you, Lady Val,” Jon murmured once they began to move forward again. 

“Aye, you did say that,” she replied, and something about her emphasis on the word “say” managed to increase his guilt two-fold. 

That night, he dreamed his same dreams. 

_Lay me to rest, Snow._

_I do hereby crown you King of Winter, heir to Winterfell, protector of the North._

_I don't want it. I never wanted it. It was for Robb, and Bran, and Rickon, not me. Don't. Don't._

_He's north, north, north. Trapped in a tree beneath a cave. North...._

And then he saw his brother, in that tree beneath the cave, a boy no more yet weeping still. _Jon. Jon, I'm here. Jon. Find me. Please find me. I'm here, I'm here, I'm here. Can't you hear me? Jon!_

_How many eyes does Lord Bloodraven have? A thousand eyes and one._


	4. Jon II: The Wandering Brother

Strictly speaking, Jon had not been particularly forward with Val concerning the direction of their journey. He would consult his map regularly, religiously really, and on occasion, Val would ask where they were headed. Jon always replied with the general direction they were following, almost always “North,” though sometimes “East.” It wasn't until soft moss and melting snow gave way to stone and salt that Val finally asked pointedly. 

“Lord Snow, where are you taking us? And if you say north, I'll kick you in the teeth.” 

Jon inhaled deeply, slowly, knowing that her response to the truth would likely rain down more suffering than his silence. The cold air was sharp, though not quite deadly enough to burn his lungs. “I'm going to Hardhome, then tracking my way back and heading deeper into the wilds.” 

Val halted the horse, though Jon continued forward. 

“Hardhome is an evil place, Lord Snow. Evil and accursed, shunned by free men and women.”

“Aye, until your people gathered there to stand against the dead a decade ago.” 

Jon could hear the horse walking again, the hooves shuffling against the snow. “Snow, my people died. If we tread those ruins, we'll have death breathing over our shoulders. We should turn back.”

“Death breathes over the shoulder of every man,” Jon said softly. “There are caves at Hardhome. Many of them. Meera said my brother is in a cave, and I'll not shun the place most likely to be keeping Bran captive.” 

“No one survived Hardhome.” Val's voice was just as soft as his own, one part contemplation, two parts warning. “Not my people, not your black brothers. Your boy-prince, if he is alive, is not there.” 

“Bran is older than I was when I was elected Lord Commander. He's not a boy anymore, and he's spent enough years in the dark.” 

Val maintained a cold silence for hours afterwards. One that, somehow, compelled even the King of Winter to explain himself. “I want the worst done with as soon as possible. If he's not there, then I never have to dread Hardhome again.” 

Val murmured a simple “I understand,” before falling back into that stony, quiet place she had. Jon was not sure if she was attempting to punish him or if she was truly afraid of what lie ahead. It did not matter. She should turn around and go back to Winterfell, anyway. If the prospect of Hardhome was enough to do that, well... 

“We'll stop here for tonight,” Jon announced when they passed beneath the shadow of a cliff large enough to protect from the winds of the Shivering Sea. Val pulled up the reins of the horse and dismounted, squinting at the sky. 

“It's early, yet,” she said, her fingers brushing softly over the horse's neck. 

“Yes, but we're not resting enough. We'll kill ourselves before the monsters at Hardhome even get a chance.” 

Val hummed in response before digging flint out of her pack and setting about making a fire. Jon tugged out their sleep rolls and the pail they used to boil water before closing his eyes to search for Ghost. The direwolf was not too far, only about a mile away snuffling about some sparse greens. Jon projected his hunger, the weakness he felt in his limbs, and Ghost responded with a whine. Ghost would try to hunt, but there was little fauna north of the ruins and even less this close to haunted grounds. In the mean time, Jon tugged out his dagger and set to work on a nearby pine growing from a crack in the cliff. He tugged out a couple of handfuls of needles and carved out chunks of bark to boil. 

When Jon returned to Val, she already had the pail full of snow, ready to be boiled. They had a silent routine, somehow able to communicate what needed to be done, somehow able to pick up one another's slack without saying a word. She was sitting on her bedroll, legs crossed and braiding her hair, and for a moment Jon was halted at the sight of her. Her eyes met his, the pretty blue-grey of them wide and lovely and perfect. But in the next instant, Jon flinched as blood filled his mouth and bones crunched beneath his teeth and the heady hunter's lust rushed through him before disappearing as quickly as the sensation registered. 

“Ghost found dinner,” Jon told Val as she tied the end of her braid and drew her knees to her chest. Jon tore up the pine needles and tossed them into the now-bubbling water before sinking onto his own roll in silence. He stared at the flames, and thought of Rhaegal. It's better he's gone. Better for everyone. The loss irritated, but was nothing compared to what he had already suffered. Jon was the blood of Winterfell, and Winterfell had no place to house a dragon. _You're the blood of the dragon, as well, you fool._ Jon fell back on his mat and threw his arm over his eyes, weariness setting in as his body seemed to sink deeper and deeper into the stone beneath. 

Jon must have fallen asleep, for the next thing he knew, Ghost was breathing into his hair and Val was skinning a couple of rabbits. “Look,” she sighed. “Life is returning to the north, finally.” 

“And you killed it, mongrel,” Jon said to Ghost, scratching the soft fur behind his ear. 

“You are sure you wish to venture to Hardhome, Lord Snow?” 

It annoyed Jon to be addressed as “Lord Snow.” Especially from her, though it seemed far too intimate to directly ask that she call him by his given name. “Yes, I'm sure. You can always turn back, Lady Val. You are under no obligation to follow me there.” 

“I told your sister I would.” 

“I'm sure Sansa would bring your nephew to Winterfell without my presence.”

“She made it very clear that she wouldn't send men for Dalla's boy unless I returned with you alive and whole.” 

Jon sighed. “Sansa was always uniquely talented at precipitating acts of kindness with unbearable cruelty.” 

“She is a hard woman. All you Starks are hard people. Half stone, half ice, the lot of you, and some magic to hold it all together.” 

Jon snorted, then returned to silence, threading fingers through his hair as he thought about his father. That night, instead of dreaming of cold and clawing fingers and blood and steel, he dreamed of warmth and slick skin and honey hair dripping onto his chest and the most ancient rhythm in the world. It was still dark when he woke aching and hard, his frustration only made worse by the phantom sensation of Val's breasts pressed against Ghost's back. 

_Godsdamned wolf. Godsdamned woman. Godsdamned bond._

Jon did not want Val with him, but his own sister had condemned them both to each other's company. He remembered Sansa, all auburn hair and shrewd eyes, asking if Val was his woman. The bluntness of it surprised Jon. Sansa had been nothing but sweet stories and polite smiles for their entire childhood, but she had grown into a woman with little patience for subtlety in her private life. No, Val was not his woman, had never been his woman, and likely never would be. Proximity made Jon want her, though, made him think of touching her, of kissing her, of fucking her into the earth. He wanted to roll over, press his face into her throat, grind his hips against hers... 

_Stop. Stop._

More than anything, Jon needed sleep. Thinking about what he wanted to do to her would ensure that they would start the next morning with him as exhausted and sleepless as the long days before. He thought of dragonfire and horror and silver hair. His arousal cooled quickly enough. Jon closed his eyes, breathed deeply, and drifted back to sleep, where his dreams were appropriately disturbing and entirely absent of honey hair. 

The next day, Jon moved them closer inland, wanting to avoid the treeless shore. He didn't like that Ghost had to hunt so far away every time they made camp, especially the closer they got to Hardhome. Jon knew that Hardhome was a dark place. Perhaps not as dark as Val and her folk believed, but dark enough to keep him wary. Truth be told, Jon didn't much like being among the trees, either. _How many eyes does Lord Bloodraven have?_ But there was no escaping it, the eerie discomfort of this wilderness. The sensation of eyes all around them never faded no matter where Jon directed their journey. Val's observation that life was returning to the north brought him little comfort. _A thousand eyes and one._

It was past midday when Jon first saw the ruins. They miles away yet, but he could still see the rise of them, six hundred years of desolation rendering them uninhabitable. 

_This is wrong. This place is wrong. Turn back._

Jon felt it. This ground was accursed. Haunted. Terrible. 

“Val. Val, you should wait here while I go on ahead.” Jon rested his fingers along the mare's neck, glancing up the silent woman. _She needn't enter this darkness with me._

“I go where you go, Lord Snow. At the very least, I'll need to bring your body back to Lady Stark.” 

“Sansa isn't Lady Stark. And you were right. This place should be shunned.”

“Aye, but not by you. Not by me. We go together.” 

Jon nodded, as annoyed by her stubbornness as he was grateful for it. The sun was setting by the time they reached the ruins proper, everything awash in a light that was blood red and ominous and lovely. The shadows danced and Jon's skin crawled and Ghost hackled. Wind whistled softly through the burned, collapsed stone. Vines twined hungrily along the broken pillars. What was once the pride of the north was now nothing more than a nightmarish parody of human achievement. _Unholy,_ Yarwyck had called it all those years ago. The man had never been so right. 

“We find the heart tree. We find it, then we leave,” Jon murmured, eyes fixated on the dance of their shadows on the fog. 

“Then we leave,” Val repeated, her voice soft and low. 

The tree was easy to find. The wildlings of the present did not deviate from the wildlings of centuries past. They kept their weirwoods in the center of their lives, structuring their villages around the heart. Hardhome was no different. 

The weirwood was large, though not unusually so for a tree its age. It was smaller than the one in Winterfell, bigger than most Jon had seen in the wilds. But there was no cave beneath it. Bran was not here. Nothing was here. Nothing but shadows and dark history. 

“My brother isn't here.” Jon was surprised at the defeat in his own voice. He had not expected to find Bran here, not truly, but... “We can leave.” 

Jon turned to follow their own footprints back out of the ruins and into the forest, but Val's voice stopped him. “Oh. Lord Snow,” she sighed, her voice sounding oddly breathy. Frighteningly weak. “I'm falling.” 

And then she toppled off the horse. Jon moved to catch her, but the momentum of her dead weight had his knees collapsing beneath him. 

“Val, look at me,” Jon commanded, his fingers brushing her hair out of her eyes. Her eyes flashed open and snapped to his face, lids fearfully wide, body trembling. 

“Jon,” she whispered. “Jon it's me.” Tears leaked from her blue-grey eyes, her brow creased in emotion. “It's me. Don't you know me?”

Jon's lungs seized. He glanced up at the weirwood, the face dripping with deep-red sap. He became oddly aware of the beating of his own heart. “Yes,” he breathed. “Yes, I know you. Bran. Brother.”

Val's body shuddered and Bran's eyes wept. “I dreamed of you. Once you were fighting the wights. Once you were fighting a dragon. I thought you'd forgotten me.” 

“I never forgot you. Not once. Not ever. Not even for a second. I'm coming for you.”

“You're far, I think. I never saw any ruins when I came to the cave. Just a wooden keep.” 

“I'll find you,” Jon vowed, his voice hoarse. “I'm going to take you home.” 

“Yes.” The blue-grey eyes closed. “Yes.” 

Val's body shuddered once more, and Jon held her close, pressing his face into her hair. Whether he was holding his brother or her, Jon did not know.


	5. Val II: The Cracked Vessel

_Author's Note: Sorry for the super late update, anyone who is still reading this. I'm currently working on a universe-wide project that all take place in the same timeline as Walls. Each work will, for the most part, be focused on a bastard of Westeros. The one I'm currently working on will go more into the backstory of Walls, detailing some of Jon's misadventures of the past few years. Hopefully I'll have the first few chapters out in the next couple of weeks. Have a good weekend, everyone!_ :)

Val felt as though she had lost something, though she wasn’t sure what. She heard murmurs distantly, from far away, yet the tone was so soft that they must have been near. It was a contradiction, an oddity, but one that seemed acceptable compared to the sense of great loss that she felt. Was it possible for a woman to lose the thing most dear to her, but not remember what it was? That’s what it felt like. Lost, and gone, and lost, and gone. Everything disappeared. Everything. Even herself. 

_I'm coming for you._

But Val was not there anymore. She was disappeared. 

_I'll find you._

There was no one to find. 

_I'm going to take you home._

Val hadn’t a home since Dalla died. Just a little monster who was taken from her in time as well. Just a snowy keep that had resisted her forebears. Just a cold family who allowed her to remain out of limited charity. 

There was nothing to be done about it. She had nothing and no one and she had disappeared in the wilderness just like the crippled prince, only she had no brother to rescue her. 

But even at that thought, Val felt fingers brush softly, so very softly, along her hairline. 

“Val, love, wake up.” Warm breath against her ear. 

“Can you hear me? Wake up, my lady.” A hand tugging gently against her clothes, feeling along her throat, two fingers pressing into the delicate flesh there.

“Don’t make me take you back to Winterfell. Not now.” 

Val blinked her eyes open, the flickering of the flames somehow blinding. “Oh,” she breathed. “It’s you.” 

Lord Snow’s brow wrinkled and he pressed the backs of his fingers to her forehead, feeling for her temperature. “It’s who, my lady?” His eyes met hers, and for the first time she saw them burn. 

“You. Lord Snow. King of Winter, King in the North, whatever your title is now.” Her voiced was cracked, her throat parched, her body throbbing with a dull ache. Had she fallen ill? 

Snow’s eyes lost their intensity and for a moment he looked disappointed. Then his expression shuttered as it always did, and he was as cold and as distant as ever even as she lay in his arms. He was the oddest man she had ever met. 

“What happened?” she asked, her throat still sore and dry. 

Snow laid her down on her bedroll and pulled her blanket up to her shoulders before resting back on the ground. Val had grown accustomed to the way he sat, the very curve of his spine somehow distinctive, the forearms resting on his knees familiar. His hands were absently peeling off the bark from a twig. Snow had large hands, and strong, with veins wrapping along knuckles and tendons. Val knew he was a man, truly she did, but there were times when that seemed more apparent than others. No matter how often she liked to fancy that the King of Winter was made up of ice and stone, he was still warm flesh and blood. Whatever chill stiffened his spine and whatever iron strengthened his resolve, he was made of the same stuff as her. 

“You fell from the horse, Lady Val. In Hardhome.” 

“Oh. I’ve never fallen before.” 

Snow said nothing, just stared into the fire and kept picking at the twig. 

“Am I ill, Lord Snow? Did Hardhome curse me?” 

Snow chucked the twig into the fire with more ferocity that she felt the question merited. “No, you’re not cursed. There was nothing in Hardhome. Not even the shades you feared.” He lurched to his feet, his head whipping towards the trees at the edge of their encampment. Snow’s beast loped towards them before dropping at Val’s side, his head nudging into her shoulder. “Get some rest, my lady.” 

But Val did not feel tired, just sore. “Why do you call me that? I’m not a lady.” 

Snow was still staring into the trees, the fingers of his right hand clenching and flexing. “Why do you call me Lord Snow when I’m neither a lord nor a Snow?” 

“Because ‘King Jon, heir of Winterfell, blood of the dragon, and protector of the North’ would give you insufferable airs.” 

Snow tipped his head back to look at the stars. “Maybe I call you ‘lady’ because I want you to behave like one.” 

Val snorted in her least ladylike fashion. “You’ve never wanted a woman to behave like a lady in your entire life, Lord Snow.” 

The corner of Snow’s mouth quirked up in what could almost be a smirk, though in this light is was difficult to tell. “Aye, I did once. You just weren’t there to see it.” 

“Was that with your wildling lass? The one kissed by fire?” 

“Ygritte? No. Ladies don’t fuck bastard Night’s Watchmen in the woods. I just wanted her less naïve.” 

“Why did I fall from my horse?”

“I don’t think you want to know why.” 

“Do not presume to know my mind, Snow.” 

Snow inhaled deeply, rolling his shoulders and dropping his head low to stretch his neck. He turned to look at her and crouched by her bedroll so their eyes met easily. He reached to brush a strand of hair behind her ear. “You’ve beautiful eyes, you know that?” 

Val’s hand reared back to slap him, but he caught her wrist easily. “My brother made contact. He used your body as a vessel.” 

Val could feel her own pulse thrumming against his curled fingers. 

“That’s taboo, even amongst the free folk.” Snow’s thumb stroked up along her palm. _Gods, but he is dark. Dark hair, dark eyes, dark clothes, dark words. He truly is a crow._

_He used your body as a vessel._ Val had never been violated before. At least, certainly not like this. Not where she could not lash out at her aggressor, could not defend herself, could not even say something to stop it. 

“For how long?” Her voice trembled, and she hated it. Val was of the free folk. She had withstood winter, had even been known to laugh at it. 

“A minute, maybe two.” Snow’s voice was soft, far more somber than it had been just moments ago. 

“I was asleep for so long…”

“Yes. I am not sure why.” 

_Your crippled prince trapped me in my own mind, you fool. That’s why._

“Don’t touch me,” Val whispered as she yanked her hand away from the warmth of his. “That’s why you asked your name when I woke up. You were disappointed when I was me and not him.” 

“Yes.” 

There was a moment of Val just staring at him. “Fuck you. Fuck you, and your evil brother and your bitch of sister. Fuck all of you.” 

Val fell back on her bedroll and turned her back to him. If she cried, she would never have admitted it.


	6. Jon III: The Shamed King

His dreams of late were growing more tiresome, oscillating frustratingly between slick skin, soft sighs, and desperate need and fire, ice, blood, and steel.

_Lay me to rest, Snow._

_As your king and the son of your prince, I order you to name me your champion._

_I will rain fire and blood down upon your house, the likes of which you have never even dreamed._

_He’s north, north, north._

_How many eyes does Lord Bloodraven have?_

_Fuck you, and your evil brother and your bitch of a sister._

These were his nightmares, his demons. But other times, his dreams were sweeter. Too sweet, taunting him with everything he wanted and everything he would never have: Val as his lover, Bran whole and happy and in Winterfell, Robb and Eddard Stark and Sam Tarly alive, his brethren still standing strong, Rhaegal. All lost. 

Val hadn’t spoken to him in three days, not since that night. She kept to the horse and he to the path he forged, but neither of them ever said a word and the silence deafened. Jon had never spoken to her much before, but the companionable silence had shifted to something bitter and hurt and broken and Jon knew that he had done something irreparable. 

_You were disappointed when I was me and not him._

_Yes._

That wasn’t true, not really. Or rather, not entirely. Jon had been out of his mind with worry for her when she had not woken after Bran had left. When she had awoken, it was his greatest relief since starting on this godsforsaken journey. Jon had only been disappointed for a moment, though “disappointment” seemed like a poor word for what he felt. He had been relieved that she was well and bereaved at Bran’s absence. Was that truly so terrible? Would she not feel the same way? 

Somehow, it did not seem to matter how Val would have felt. Jon felt guilty either way, and was further frustrated by his sense of guilt. It was shameful to use a woman’s body as a vessel for his brother. It was shameful to feel as though Bran deserved use of Val’s body more than Val. But Bran was kin, his brother, tortured by infirmity, darkness, and solitude. Val’s momentary loss of control seemed a small price to pay for Bran to have a few seconds in the light. For a free woman, perhaps that was too terrible a price for anyone to pay. But Jon was not a free man, and the same creed did not bind him. 

The days wore on slowly. Jon knew that they had been travelling from Hardhome for nearly two weeks, though sometimes he wondered if he were losing days. The winter was waning, and giving way to green and mud and the smell of life. The deeper inland they went, though, the more Jon worried about sweetrot. The ground was no longer stone, but soft shifting silt in which he was prone to sink. Heavy rains were becoming more frequent, and Jon could not recall the last time he had been dry for a full day. He’d resorted to riding pillion with Val to avoid the disease that lay in the cold mud. The transition from ground to horse had been uncomfortable, but now it was as much a fact of life as her silence. When he’d first taken to horse, Val had immediately dismounted and began to walk instead. It had taken Jon threats of physical force to get her back on the animal, but she tolerated it now nonetheless. 

Between her silence and his irritated boredom, something festeringly angry had grown between them, an insidious sickness that seemed more threatening than the wilderness. Everything he did made her furious, it seemed, her moods ranging from quiet resentment to quiet rage. Once while they rode, she had fallen asleep against him and when she woke, she tore away from him, off the horse, and into the trees. Jon thought about leaving her, truly he did. But he waited instead, unleashing a tirade of measured fury against her when she returned. She’d only scoffed at him, the closest he’d come to breaking her silence, and pushed him out of the way to mount their mare. He’d nearly pushed her off the horse in retaliation, but he’d managed to rein in that impulse.

Still, despite their growing loathing for one another, it came as a surprise when she tore him from his dreams of dragonfire one night with a forearm pressed to his mouth and her knife drawn in her hand. Jon forced the knife from her grip and flipped her to the ground without resistance from her. He opened his mouth to speak, but her hand clapped over it, stopping his words. She pointed to the north sky, and when he looked, he saw a thin pillar of smoke trailing against the luminescent glow of the moon. Jon handed the knife back to her, rolled onto the ground, and slipped his skin. 

Ghost was already following the scent of soot and man, so Jon returned to his body. Val was already packing up camp, her bedroll strapped to the horse, the fire pit buried. Jon moved to do the same, but her hand on his forearm stopped him. She raised her eyebrows and jerked her head towards the smoke, but Jon only shook his head and gestured for her to mount. He was packed in seconds, and handed her the reins before mounting. Once they were on the move, he slipped back into Ghost. The wolf had taken the high ground on a precipice overlooking the encampment. There were six of them, four sleeping, two on watch. They had tried to keep their fire low, but their wood was too wet and set off a great, stupid column of smoke. 

The fools were not wildlings, as far as he could tell. Their clothes were too well-kept. It looked like they were from a Westerosi household, by the look of their steel and saddles, but Jon could not tell which. He let Ghost’s consciousness take more control, the sharp, instinctual senses flooding over human reasoned processes. Ghost couldn’t place them with a specific family, but everything about their scent reminded the wolf and Jon of King’s Landing and death. 

Jon nudged Ghost to return to him before Jon joined Val back on the horse. She’d kept him from falling off, at least, though Jon doubted she would ever be petty enough to deliberately let him drop. 

“How many?” she whispered. 

“Six, that I saw. From King’s Landing.”

Val nodded and urged the mare on faster. 

They were miles away when Jon took the reins from Val and slowed the mare to a canter, then to a walk. An hour after that, Ghost materialized beside them, panting with fatigue. Jon drew the mare to a halt and dismounted, running his fingers through Ghost’s fur. The wolf shivered at his touch, agitated, before tearing off into the trees again. 

“Fuck,” Jon muttered. “Fuck, fuck, _fuck_.”

He turned back to address Val, and in the light of the moon, he saw her honey eyebrow raise in question. “I think my aunt is looking for us,” he said. “Or, well, me. She’s looking for me. She probably doesn’t know you’re here. Or who you are. _Fuck_.” 

Val dismounted and began pulling her gear off the mare. Jon stopped her, gently gripping her forearm. She tried to jerk free, but Jon just tugged her into himself instead. 

“We’re not alone out here anymore. We’re not safe. This resentment needs to end. We need to trust one another.” 

Jon could see irritation pinching along the edges of her eyes and mouth, and she tried to tear free from him. He wouldn’t let her, though. He was stronger, and while she had grown up wild and fierce, she wasn’t a warrior, not like him. It was an easy thing to gather her slender wrists into the grip of one of his hands, pulling her as close as he could without being obscene. 

“Look at me,” Jon murmured, weaving his fingers through the hair at the base of her skull, angling her face towards his. He could kiss her, if he wanted. It would be so easy. He could feel her, the warmth she radiated a contrast to the chill. Her breath was coming more quickly, clouds of it swirling in the dark and melting with his own exhalations. She wasn’t struggling against him, not anymore, not even when he glided the pad of his thumb against the delicate bone of her cheek. 

“It was wrong, what Bran did. It was wrong, and I know that, and I never would have wanted that to happen to you. I didn’t want you gone, I didn’t want you hurt, I didn’t want him to replace you. But he’s my brother, and he’s been alone in the dark for years. I only hoped you were Bran when you woke because he’s going mad in that cave. I just… I wanted him to not be alone, just for a little while. I’m sorry if that upsets you, but I can’t go back and rearrange my feelings to be more suitable for you.” 

“Fuck you, Jon Snow.” 

“You shouldn’t say that unless you plan to follow through.” 

Oh. He shouldn’t have said that. Gods be fucking good, he shouldn’t have said that. Val’s eyes blazed into his, and Jon felt himself shrink slowly in shame. He pulled away from her and unfastened her blanket from the mare, his eyes glued to hers despite his preoccupied hands. He pushed her things into her hands and pointed at the underbrush behind them. “I’m sorry. You need to stay hidden for the night.” 

“You’re leaving.” It wasn’t a question so much as a statement of annoyed disbelief. 

“Something is wrong with Ghost. He’s on edge. Someone else is out here, not just the camp to the north. I need to find out who they are and what they want.” 

“Why are you leaving me behind, then? What if they…” 

“I won’t be far, just scouting the perimeter. You have your knife?” 

Val lifted it, nodding. 

Jon nodded in return before mounting. He looked down at her, her face half-hidden in shadow and somehow all the lovelier for it. “Val, I… I really am sorry. Truly.” 

“I believe you,” she replied, but her voice carried a note of defiance that left the unspoken _but I don’t forgive you_ swirling through the air between them as surely as their own breath. 

Jon felt a smile tug at the corners of his lips, anyway. So long as she was speaking to him again, it didn’t matter if she forgave him. They could fight whoever was tracking them. Life was indeed returning to the north, but gods that meant terrible, terrible things.


	7. Val III

Val shivered beneath her blanket, brush tangled in her hair. Snow had left her in the dark hours ago, though she could only tell because the night was retreating. She couldn’t see the first hint of the sun on the horizon the way should could if she were high in the Frostfangs, not while she was trapped in the trees. But the sky had shifted from black to gray, and Val knew the beginning pale yellow rays of first light were hiding just beneath the tree line. 

In the quiet, in the dark, it had been nearly impossible to stay awake. There were times where it felt like she had drifted off, but then in the cold of the changeless forest, it was difficult to tell for sure. At dawn, now, though, Snow would have to return soon. He wouldn’t have the cover of dark under which he could scout. And for a moment, she thought she heard him. The forest was so silent and her ears were so sensitive to the slightest sound that she could hear footsteps approaching. But, whatever she felt about Jon Snow, she had spent months travelling with him, and she knew him well. She knew the rhythm of his breath, his steps, his perfunctory laugh. Whoever was coming near had too long a stride and too heavy footfalls to be Snow. Someone taller and significantly heavier, then. Almost certainly male. 

Val quietly unwrapped herself from the blanket, freeing herself for movement. She shrank back into brush and drew her knife. In the rising light, she could see him. He was too close for her to run, too far for her to attack. Her fingers fumbled on the ground, gripping tightly around a stone when they found one, her arm arcing back to fling it at the tree adjacent. The dull thud of stone on bark was enough to attract his attention, and he went to investigate the brush lining the tree with his back to her. 

She crept up to him silently. Her years growing up in the wilds had taught her survival, if not how to be a soldier. Her knife was biting into his throat in seconds as her fingers deftly unbuckled his sword belt. Val whispered orders in his ear, telling him to put his hands on his head, telling him not to make a sound. The fool hadn’t thought to draw his knife or sword while he investigated the forest, and she kicked the belt away when it fell to the ground. She could feel blood trickling warmly down her thumb, and she wondered briefly if she should slit his throat now, or detain him until Snow returned. 

It didn’t matter, though, because a strong hand wrenched her arm from around the man, twisting her wrist so sharply that her fingers compulsively dropped the knife. She was forced to the ground, thrown so strongly that the breath was struck from her lungs. Two other men stood over her as she gasped for air, weapons drawn. _Gods, how did I miss them?_

“Stupid bitch,” the man Val had disarmed muttered, pressing his palm into the shallow cut she had left along his throat. “Who the fuck do you think you are, eh? You think we won’t fuck your wildling cunt bloody?” 

Val managed to snort with amusement despite her lack of breath. She saw a flash of white through the trees, the half-light reflecting through the grayness of dawn. “I think you wouldn’t know how to handle a woman who isn’t a simpering southron whore.” A mailed backhand made contact with her mouth, splitting her lip. Val spat blood into the dirt, laughing. 

“You think you can disrespect your new masters, bitch?” 

Val grinned even though it hurt, even though she could feel blood trickling down her chin. “Free women don’t take masters, fool.” 

The bleeding man opened his mouth, likely to say something else, but the words did not come. Ghost had already ripped out his throat. Snow dispatched the second man easily, silently, swiftly, his sword slicing smoothly against vulnerable carotid before anyone had time to react to Ghost’s presence. Years ago, sometime in the dark of winter, Val first thought that Jon Snow was made – _designed_ ¬ to cut men down the way most people were made to breathe, and he continued to prove her hypothesis correct. The third man was advancing on Snow, but furious defiance rose in Val, and her foot struck out, hard, to hit him in the back of the knee. The man stumbled and dropped with a surprised grunt of pain, and winced when the steel of Snow’s sword gently kissed at his throat. 

“You know,” Snow said softly, “we geld rapists in my kingdom. Strictly speaking, this isn’t my kingdom, but given that this land is unclaimed and I’m here now, I rather think my own laws should stand. At least for the time being. What do you think, my lady?” 

“I never raped nobody. You got no proof.” 

“Oh, aye, that’s true. Slaving, then. That’s punishable by death, ser, and I do believe you proclaimed yourself her master.” 

It was the oddest thing, watching Snow calmly barter punishments with the captive even when Val could tell he was violently livid. 

“I didn’t do nothing. _She_ attacked us. We didn’t know she was a lady.” 

“Well naturally that makes slaving perfectly acceptable so long as it isn’t done to a lady.” Snow let his steel snick against the man’s throat, just barely, just enough to make the man hiss and make tiny pinpricks of blood bloom. 

Snow breathed deeply, inhaling slowly through his nose, and his wolf slunk around the man, baring his teeth against the man’s throat without truly biting down. 

“Move, and my wolf will tear out your throat.” 

Snow removed his sword from his captive’s neck, dragging his eyes over Val with a furrowed brow. He stepped over to her, kneeling beside her, the hand not preoccupied with his sword gently gripping her chin. He used his thumb to smear away the blood before cupping the back of her neck and softly, tenderly, soothingly squeezing. Snow was angry still, she could tell, and a dark spray of red soaked him from knuckles to bicep along his sword arm. But his touch was unbearably careful with her, a dichotomy that drained her angry defiance to be replaced instead with bone-deep weariness. 

“You’re hurt?” 

Val shook her head, her movements somewhat limited by his fingers stroking a strand of her hair behind her ear and his inspection of her jaw and cheek. 

“Mmm. But this will bruise. And badly.” Snow grimaced in sympathy. “Can you stand?” 

Val did so to demonstrate that, in all, she was fine. Maybe a bit of bruising along the jaw and around her ribs from the impact of her fall, but nothing of serious concern. Snow’s lips quirked up in a grim sort of half smile, and he returned his focus to the man trembling beneath Ghost. 

Snow settled himself on a fallen log, elbows resting on spread knees, the bloodied tip of his sword grazing the forest floor, looking so casually comfortable that the blatant coiled danger in the set of his shoulders and forearms was almost negligible. 

“You’re from King’s Landing,” he murmured. “I can tell from your accent. Did Danaerys send you?” 

“I’m not to say,” the man replied, his voice noticeably weaker with Ghost’s breath down his neck. 

“Right, so that sounds like a ‘yes’. Is Ser Gendry still a member of court? Is he still serving in the capitol?” 

The question obviously took the man by surprise, but he must have found it innocuous enough, for he answered “Yes,” without hesitation. “But he…” 

“’But he,’ what?” 

“He should be leaving the capitol soon. Danaerys named him heir to Storm’s End, after Edric. She arranged for him to marry Arya Stark.” 

“Not Sansa?” Snow’s eyes were narrowed now. 

“No, I’m sure I heard that it was Arya. The younger sister.” 

Snow scoffed. “Rumors, I’m sure. She’d want to subdue Sansa before Arya. Sansa’s much more of a threat. You know who I am, yes?” 

The man blinked, his eyes flicking nervously over to Val before snapping back to Snow. “King Jon Stark, son of Lyanna and Rhaegar, nephew to Queen Danaerys.” 

“And who is she?” Snow asked, tipping his head in Val’s direction without actually looking at her. 

The man shrugged, wincing when the motion set his shoulder against Ghost’s teeth. “Thought she was some wildling cu—woman.” 

Snow nodded thoughtfully before asking “Why did Danaerys send you? Why are you tracking us?” 

“I’m not to say.”

Snow’s eyes narrowed, the set of his jaw adjusting around his irritation. “Are you sure?”

Snow was looking at Val now, his face unreadable for a moment before his brow furrowed. His eyes flicked back to the captive before he dropped his chin to his chest, stretching his neck. It was fully light now, and the morning danced along the bend of his spine, the nape of his neck exposed as his hair tumbled along his collarbones. He looked unbearably vulnerable just then, and Val had the oddest urge to touch him as he had her as though he were in need of her protection. 

“Aye, I’m not to say,” the man repeated, his voice trembling. 

Snow’s shoulders tensed, and he let out a long exhale. There was a blur of motion, then a horrible snap, and the man was screaming and writhing on the ground. Ghost let two bloody fingers drop from his mouth, and Snow was looking at her again, contemplative. 

Val was no stranger to violence. She did not particularly enjoy it, but… If they were being hunted, they needed to know why. She raised her eyebrows at Snow and shrugged her shoulders, and Snow turned his attention away from her again. 

“You needn’t fear retribution from Danaerys. You’ll be dead before midday, ser, but your cooperation will determine the manner of your passing. Surely the queen hasn’t won such ardent loyalty from lowly knights.” 

The man whimpered in response, his maimed hand nursed against his chest as he curled on his side. 

“Why did Danaerys send you?” 

The man choked on his breath for a moment before whimpering “We were supposed to kill you and your wolf.” 

Snow hummed in response. “Is Winterfell still retained by the Starks?” 

“Yes,” the man sobbed. 

“Does Danaerys plan to march on the North?” 

The man shook his head. “Not yet.” 

“When?”

“I… I don’t know. All I know is not yet. Might be she was waiting for you to die.” 

“You mean ‘be murdered,’ I think. How many are there? Of your men, I mean.”

“Several dozen. Maybe close to a hundred. We came in different squads, spread out all over the north. Had to travel separately so as not to attract attention.” 

Gods, a hundred? The north was vast and wild, but a hundred men systematically hunting? It was only Val, Snow, and Ghost and they could easily escape detection, but they’d never be able to light a fire again for fear of signaling the enemy. 

“What of Aegon?” 

“Still in Dorne, last I heard. Don’t know much about him,” the man claimed weakly. 

“Thank you,” Snow said, and he almost sounded sincere. He stood from the log, placing his sword in his left hand to flex his right, shifting the sword back to the right again. “Stand, if you please, ser.” 

“Why? So you’ll feel less guilty about kill an unarmed man?” 

Snow chuckled softly. “You may deny yourself dignity in your last moments, if you wish.” 

The wounded man spat at Snow’s feet. Snow responded by pressing his foot against the man’s shoulder before pushing the blade into his heart. 

The mare had wandered from between the trees and nuzzled at Val’s shoulder. Snow approached, but the mare shied away, likely spooked by the scent of blood. “Easy now, lovely,” he murmured, stroking his fingers along the animal’s neck. “Easy now. There’s a girl.” He shoved his hand into his pack, pulling out a cloth and dragging it down the length of his blade. 

“We should find a better place to camp,” he said, eyes still focused on the blade. “We can’t sleep in the open anymore.” 

Val nodded, mounting the mare. Snow mounted behind her after he sheathed his sword, directing the horse away from the three bodies of the slain. They left them lying on the forest floor to be carrion. Winter was finished and there was nothing to fear from the dead.


	8. Val IV

It was nearly an hour after midday by the time Snow allowed them to stop. Val was so tired that she nearly killed herself dismounting, likely would have if she hadn’t toppled right into Snow. He’d stumbled, but steadied her, his face even wearier than she felt. His brow crinkled in trouble, and he traced a concerned finger sleepily along her bruised jaw before gathering his things and shuffling into the cave they’d found. Val unsaddled the horse and tripped after him, curling into the dry earth beside him and falling asleep as soon as her eyes shut. 

It was night when she opened her eyes again, the dark of the cave so black that a moment of panic rose in her throat before she remembered where she was. She reached out in the blackness, her hand shuffling around the dirt before it abruptly met something warm and soft. A sleepy grunt made her jump, and a warm hand closed around her own. 

“What’s wrong?” Snow’s voice was warm with sleep, tinged with appropriate disquiet. She felt him rise slightly, propping himself on an elbow.

“Sorry,” she whispered back. “Water?” 

Snow groaned, and she heard him thump back onto the cave floor. He reached behind him, blind in the dark, and fumbled a skin out of their pile of things. Val touched along his forearm in thanks, he responding with a low huff of breath. 

It seemed odd that in a single day, all the weeks of bitter resentment dissolved. Though, well, perhaps not so odd. Val and Jon Snow had known one another for years. They’d fought together, survived together, led thousands to Winterfell together and then defended those same thousands against the winds of winter. They’d spent nearly a decade near one another. Some of those years, they’d been more than near one another. 

“This reminds me of the crypts,” Val murmured. Snow went very still before letting out a deliberate, controlled breath. 

“Don’t think about that.”

They’d be huddled together for warmth if it were the crypts, if it were still winter. They spent nearly a year of darkness in those cold stone corridors, wrapped around one another so they wouldn’t freeze while they slept. The feel of him pressed against her, of warm breath fanning over her back, of eyelashes brushing against her neck, became so familiar that after winter broke, she found it difficult to sleep without him. Sometimes it wasn’t the absence of him that kept her awake, though. Sometimes it was the memories. Memories of him stumbling to her after patrol, wreaking of _cold_ , and covered in blood, and feeling as though he’d never be warm again. Memories of him pressing his face to her throat, of his fingers making fists in her clothes, of hot tears splashing onto her collarbones as he shook, whispering _I’m so afraid I’ll die again. I’m so afraid._ She would have to hum in his ear to soothe him, to drown out the echoes of shrieking dragons and howling wolves and screaming men that would chase along the stone walls. 

“It’s been years. We needn’t be afraid of remembering,” she replied. 

“Some things don’t deserve remembrance.” 

Val wondered if he truly believed that, if that was the reason he’d left the North vulnerable and unbreakable to return years later as someone less than he was when he’d journeyed south. She had thought that she loved him, the man who would come to her weeping and leave with grim resolve, the man who had broken dawn over the backs of the Cold Ones. The man who came back from the south had a new name with a new coldness and a new violence. He was no longer Jon Snow, bastard of Winterfell and disgraced Lord Commander. He was King Jon, ruler of the North and pioneer of the wilds. 

King Jon didn’t acknowledge any feelings he may have fostered for Val. He barely even acknowledged that she existed, let alone the companionship they’d shared during their darkest years. He executed the disloyal elements in his newly-forged kingdom, refused to discuss the deaths of his dragon and Queen Danaerys’, and absolutely would not countenance any attempts to broker a marriage alliance with himself or any of his Stark kin. He granted the Gift to dispossessed smallfolk and wildlings – provided the wildlings obey his laws. Violation of law or insurrection was met with swift and brutal justice. 

A thought occurred to Val, then. Snow touched her often, but never with sexual intent, not even all those years ago. Perhaps he just… didn’t… 

“Do you think I’m beautiful?” 

“What?” The word was formed inside genuine, surprised laughter. Val felt as though she were shrinking in embarrassment. It had been a stupid thing to ask. “Of course I do. Everyone does.” 

“That’s not what I meant.” 

There were a few beats of silence before he replied. “I don’t know what you want me to say. You’re just… objectively lovely. It’s not something that’s disputed.” 

“No, I mean…” Val could have been writhing in discomfort. Why had she started this? “You used to hold me. In the dark.” 

Snow was silent again, as though he were trying to figure out how the horror in the crypts was at all related to his opinion of her. Gods, but she was a fool. 

“Are you cold?”

“No.” 

“Are you… frightened?” 

“No.” 

He went quiet, and the silence stretched so long this time that Val thought he had dropped the matter. Until he said, “Val, do you want…”

“ _No_. Gods, just go back to sleep.”

Snow laughed, then. It was a warm sound, full and sincere. “I must confess, my lady, I am very confused.”

Val took a deep breath, his laughter bleeding the discomfort out of her. “I was thinking of the crypts and how we used to hold each other while we slept. And then it was all over and you went south, but you were different when you came back. You were cold. To me. And dangerous to everyone. And I thought that maybe…” She trailed off, because she didn’t know how to say that she had thought that he loved her years ago and that he changed his mind in the south. Or how to explain that it occurred to her that maybe he never felt anything for her at all. 

“And you thought that maybe the reason I was cold to you was because I thought you were ugly?” His voice teased her gently, still full of mirth, and it made her smile despite herself. 

“Not exactly.” 

It was quiet for long moments, companionable, comfortable in a way they hadn’t been together for over a month. Val was slipping back into a before-sleep trance when his voice jerked her back into her mind. 

“On condition of legitimizing me as a Stark rather than a Targaryen,” Snow murmured, “Danaerys demanded that all my children bear the name of Targaryen. Winterfell would fall to the Targaryens and the Starks would eventually either be displaced or wiped out. I… I was never supposed to be lord or king of anything. That was supposed to be Robb, and he died forging a kingdom for the North. The Starks have ruled from Winterfell for millennia. I can’t break that. I can’t do that to my family. I can’t do it to the North.”

Val took a moment to process that, to try to understand fully what he was saying. 

“So you just… won’t take a wife?” 

Snow hummed in affirmation. “I named Rickon my heir before I even left King’s Landing. When we find Bran, he won’t be able to have children because of his injury, but Sansa and Arya can start cadet branches if they choose to name their children Stark. I took an oath once to take no wife and father no children, so this isn’t… It’s not so great a sacrifice.” 

Val ached for him just then. The urge to reach out in the dark and grasp his fingers in hers was nearly overwhelming, but she rather suspected he would not appreciate her pity. 

“You could take a mistress,” Val pointed out. 

She heard his head shake. “No bastards. Succession must be clear. No disputes.” 

“Is it true that you killed her dragon?” 

He sighed. “Yes. But she killed mine, so fair’s fair.” 

“I heard it was over Jaime Lannister.” 

“It was over proper justice. Lannister just happened to be the one on trial. It’s not…” He swallowed. “It’s not something I talk about.” 

“What will we do about the men she sent?”

“Kill them, I suppose. Between you, me, and Ghost, it shouldn’t be too difficult if we catch them off guard. They’ll be travelling in small squads. This,” he touched her jaw “can’t happen again. You need to learn to use a sword. I should have taken one of theirs yesterday for you, but I didn’t think of it.”

“That will take time.”

“It will, yes, but if something happens to me, you need to be able to get back to Winterfell on your own.”

“I know you want to find your brother. I won’t have you resent me for taking so much time.”

“It’s not your fault. It’s practical and necessary, and it won’t take so very much time as to justify neglecting it.” 

Val hummed in agreement, a bit relieved that she would have the means to defend herself. Just in case. She scooted closer to him on the floor, crossing her arms in front of her chest and resting them along his side. 

“I am cold,” she justified when she could feel the question in his lungs. With memories of winter still chasing over her skin, she only felt half a liar. 

He rolled into her, draping one arm over her side and crooking his other beneath his head. He didn’t press close to her as he would during winter, didn’t try to tangle them so severely that they ceased to be separate people. He just lay near her, his forearm along her ribcage their only point of contact. It felt far sweeter than it should have. 

Val was drifting off again, when he whispered, “I’m sorry. I never meant to hurt you, back then.” Val wasn’t sure if he was referring to his return from the south or the incident at Hardhome. Which she was still angry about. She was. She absolutely was angry with him. Probably. “I couldn’t be close to you and not want --” 

Val reached up and pressed her fingers to his mouth, acutely aware of the beat of her own heart. When he returned from the south, then. “Jon, just… just sleep. It’s all over now.” 

She felt tension melt out of him in acquiescence, and she lowered her hand, wrapping a fist around his shirt instead. She fell asleep with his breath in her hair and his fingers pressed to her spine. 

 

Val woke with a start the next morning. There were still shadows in the cave, but a burst of sunlight was pouring through the mouth. She could see Jon clearly now, the white scars along his brow, his dark eyelashes, a beard that aged him far beyond his years. His hair really was getting too long. She’d grown accustomed to it short, had known him to keep it cropped close to his head since the passing of winter. 

She pulled away from him slowly, carefully sliding beneath his arm, ignoring the slight ache that bloomed in her belly when she saw that his shirt had ridden up in the night, exposing his side nearly to his ribcage. She was a woman. She’d been bedding men for well over a decade. That innocent swath of flesh shouldn’t be enough to arouse her. _It’s been too long, is all._

She grabbed the water skin and wandered out of the cave, careful to make no noise. She would need to refill it, and she heard a stream nearby the day before. Green returned to the trees with the disappearance of the snow and the advent of the rains. The sun was shining now, brightly, and the sky was blue. The world was beautiful again. It was almost like the death of the Cold Ones and winter had never scarred this place. 

Val found the water quickly enough, was pleased when she noticed how clean it was, how deep it was. She bit her lip, wondering if it would be so foolish to bathe without telling Jon where she was. When exactly had he become “Jon” instead of “Snow”? 

She pushed that thought away and peeled off her clothes. It had been weeks since she’d last had a chance to properly bathe, usually having to rely on impromptu washings whenever they stopped for water. It was unlikely they would encounter more soldiers again so soon, and even if someone did find her, Jon and Ghost would hear if she screamed. 

Val eased one foot into the water, wincing at how cold it was. This would not be pleasant. She forced herself to wade quickly into the water, biting her lip against the shriek that built into her throat, only letting out a low whine instead. She walked into the water until she was submerged shoulder-deep, bending her knees to pull her head under the current. She stayed beneath the water for a minute, letting her body adjust to the cold temperature, before coming up for air, slicking her hair back from her face. 

She submerged again, grabbing a handful of sand from the riverbed, using it to scrub along her throat and arms. She leaned back in the water, letting the current flow over her scalp, using her fingers to scrub at the roots of her hair. Gods, but this felt glorious, even if she was freezing. When she had about all the cold she could stand, she glanced up along the shore, noticing Jon leaning against a tree keeping an eye on her. She wondered how long he had been waiting for her, if he was angry with her for wandering off on her own. 

Val raised an arm in greeting and began wading out, crossing an arm over her chest in modesty. Her eyes were on the water’s surface as she tried to avoid stepping on sharp rocks or slipping in the wet mud, so it surprised her when she heard a splash. She raised her eyes to him in surprise, feeling a flush of indignant shyness wash over her, that he would follow her in while she was only waist-deep in the water. Annoyance that he couldn’t wait until she dressed to scold her. Irritation that he felt the need to draw so near to her while she was this vulnerable. Shock when his fingers tangled in her hair and his arm wrapped around her waist. Arousal when his mouth closed over hers, stealing her breath and washing her in warm sensation. 

His skin was so hot against hers, a delicious contrast to the chill of the water, and he was so much better at this than she would have imagined. He licked demandingly into her mouth, his hand in her hair holding her to him, angling her however he wanted while he tangled their tongues together. His other hand was roaming all over her, her back, her hips, her belly, her breasts, everywhere everywhere everywhere. She couldn’t keep up, it was all happening too fast and blood was roaring in her ears and she couldn’t breathe or think or react, could only cling to him and whimper when he sucked roughly on her lower lip and swiped a thumb along the underside of her breast. 

She tore away from him when she couldn’t stand it, gasping for air, dizzy with want. He just pressed kisses along her cheek, her jaw, her throat instead. “I’ve wanted you,” he murmured, scraping his teeth along the juncture of her shoulder and throat, making her squirm against him, “for so long. I dream about you, and you’re right here, and I can’t help it anymore.” 

She sighed his name as he dragged her mouth back to his, wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed all of her against all of him, shivering at the sensation of his rough shirt against her soft skin. It was probably foolish to let him change their dynamic like this. It was. He’d just said the night before that he didn’t want a mistress, indicating that anything they started here wouldn’t be permanent. She didn’t care. It didn’t matter. She didn’t need permanent. All she wanted was to satisfy the warm ache pulsing between her legs. 

Val hadn’t realized that he had been dragging her out of the river until she was wading through water only ankle-deep. Her fingernails scraped against the spot where his scalp met the nape of his neck, just where his hairline started, and he groaned into her mouth, his fingers tightening reflexively over her hip. The word _please_ repeated itself over and over in her head, the fire in her blood and along her skin kindling wherever he touched, the need escalating until it was pounding under her ribs and behind her skull. 

He laid her down on the grass along the riverbank, letting his eyes rake over her for a moment. He was beautiful like this, his clothes soaked through from the wet on her body, leaner since he had left Winterfell, color high along his cheeks, eyes dark with want. She could see him straining against his pants, already hard for her, and she stroked the backs of her fingers against him. His head dropped forward, his hips rocking against her hand, his breath warm along her chest. She turned her hand to palm against him, and he groaned into her sternum, grinding into her hand for better friction. 

His fingers dipped between her legs to reciprocate, where she was aching and warm, and from the easy glide of his fingers she guessed she was wet. His eyes lifted to hers, dark and intense and heated, burning into her. 

“You’re so fucking beautiful,” he whispered, his voice like gravel. She couldn’t help but writhe a bit at the praise. “Do you have any idea what you do to me?” he asked just as he swirled a thumb right over where she wanted him most. She whimpered and arched, biting her lip to keep from begging for more, knowing exactly what she did to him because the evidence of it was heavy against her hand. 

“Jon,” she whispered, her voice completely lost. “Jon, I want…” 

He knew what she wanted because he was unlacing his pants before she could finish her sentence, grating out “Gods, I love it when you say my name,” before leaning over and pulling her nipple into his hot mouth, sucking roughly before soothing his tongue over her. 

He was inside of her before she knew what was happening, his mouth over hers to catch her cry. She squeezed her eyes closed against it, clenching her fists in the grass, the stretch of him more pain than pleasure. It really _had_ been a long time. 

He could tell, though, and he stayed still inside of her, letting her adjust, whispering things against her neck. “You’re alright. I’ve got you. Gods, you feel -- ” his breath stuttered when she clenched her muscles experimentally around him. “You feel so good.” 

He wasn’t King Jon just now. He was _her_ Jon. Jon Snow. The Jon who held her in the dark and protected her from the cold and killed men who threatened her. The discomfort lasted only a moment before the need returned, hotter now that she was full of him. She sighed his name and writhed her hips against his, wanting so very, very badly. He pressed his mouth against hers as he slowly withdrew, but the kiss barely lasted a moment before they were both moaning as he rocked back into her. 

His pace picked up, quickly turning rough and broken and it felt like she had been waiting for this for forever. How had they not done this before? 

She trailed her fingers greedily over him, digging under his shirt to gain access to his back and belly and chest. He tore away from her, though, pulling her hands off of him and stretching them over her head, pinning her wrists to the ground with one hand while the other gripped her hip, pulling her into him, angling her the way that he wanted. 

He spoke in aborted sentences, grinding out “I can’t… You feel… Gods, Val,” while his pace turned punishing. 

She wasn’t going to last, not like this. His weight was leveraged between his knees and the hand over her wrists. She knew she would have bruises after this, but she didn’t care. His thumb was strumming right over the spot where they were joined, and she arched her back, lifting her hips higher to give him better access, and then it was all over. 

She clenched tightly around him, her head thrown back, the rush of it intense, nearly too much for her. Her hands made useless fists where they were rendered helpless above her head, and something about being stretched out like this for him, about being completely at his mercy, ratcheted the pleasure even higher. She was shaking against it, long moans dragged from low in her throat as he fucked her through it, and she had barely come down before she felt him tear out of her and spill along her belly. 

He let go of her hands, resting his forehead against hers, his eyes closed, his chest heaving. She touched him, now that she was able, stroking her fingers through his hair and along his spine. He hummed in approval and pressed a gentle kiss to her lips, eyes still closed. 

“I’m still angry with you,” she murmured, not sure what to say now that their relationship had changed so completely. 

Jon chuckled softly, pressing a kiss to her brow before rolling off of her and collapsing onto the grass beside her. 

Val rose to her feet, her legs not completely steady, and stumbled back into the water to rinse herself off. When she looked back over her shoulder, Jon was resting on his elbows, his eyes burning into her with obvious interest. He looked like he’d been thoroughly fucked, with color still high in his cheeks, his eyelids half-lowered, his clothes undone and in disarray. He looked like he was half thinking about taking her all over again. 

He just flopped back into the grass instead, lifting his hips slightly to tug his pants back into place. When had he taken his boots off? Had he even been wearing them in the first place? She turned back to the river, splashing water over her belly, a smile curling around the edges of her lips.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't want to whore myself out for comments, but I'm going to. I love them. I live for them. Leave me one, please. Or ten. ;)


	9. Jon IV

Jon was at a loss. A day before, boundaries were clearly drawn and their relationship clearly defined. He’d wanted her, but he wasn’t allowed to have her. They were reluctant companions, forced together by self-interest and Sansa’s cruel ultimatum. They tolerated one another, they worked well with one another, but now… Now Jon had felt her, knew what pleasure looked like on her face, knew exactly how sweet she was when she moaned his name, and the urge to touch her was harder to resist. 

At the time, he thought he could control himself. He’d reasoned that he was only waiting by the river to protect her. He told himself that it didn’t matter that her clothes were lying on the bank, taunting him. For a while, it was true. There was a peace in watching her, lovely and wild, basking in the sunshine. But then she saw him and started walking out of the water, and, as it turned out, he could not control himself. Not with the way the drops of water were clinging to her skin and her arm was crossed protectively over herself. And then she was under him, writhing against him, taking him, and she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen in his life. 

As it stood now, he wanted desperately to stroke along her thigh. A couple of hours ago, he’d wanted to twine her hair in his hand and pull her back to kiss him. He’d reasoned that that would be a poor decision, so instead he considered filling his hand with her breast. He’d managed to talk himself down from that, though, and settled on slipping his hand under her shirt to rest along the soft skin of her belly. Of course, that still was too familiar, and so he’d been bargaining with himself nearly since they’d gotten on the horse exactly what sort of touch wouldn’t be so presumptuous as to earn her contempt. Her nearness was driving him mad. 

He wondered if she even wanted him to touch her.

He wondered if she hated him for fucking her. 

“Jon?”

Jon had never adored anything more than his name in her mouth. 

“Where are we going?” 

“Oh. Craster’s.” It seemed so odd that she didn’t know, though they’d spent so long in silence that he shouldn’t be surprised. 

“Your brother can’t be there. Too many wildlings have crawled over the ruins. They would have found him.” 

“No, Bran said he’d passed a wooden keep on his way north. It’s just a waymarker, but it’s a start. Better than scouring the whole north.” 

Val lapsed back into silence – a comfortable, companionable one, not the way it had been two days ago – and Jon ignored the urge to snake his arm around her and slip his fingers down the front of her breeches. 

Hours later, as the sun began its dip near the trees, Val spoke again. “We’ve changed.” 

“Hmm?” Jon had forced his mind blank after hours of imagining what it would be like to drag his teeth down the back of her neck, and the sound of her voice pulled him from the white emptiness of lustless peace. 

“I used to think, during winter, that we could all go back to the way things were once it was over, and for a while, I thought that we had. I thought we were all the same people in a warmer castle. But really we’ve all changed so much.”

Jon got the distinct feeling that she was lamenting something, but he wasn’t sure what. He tried to remember who he was before winter, but it was difficult. He had been a child, and winter made him a man. 

“That’s… to be expected, I think. Winter was hard. It changed everything.” 

“I used to be brighter,” she sighed. 

Yes, she was definitely lamenting something. Jon just hadn’t thought she was old enough to lament the loss of her youth. 

“You’re…” he thought of the way she’d looked after he had taken her, cleaning herself in the glitter of the water, her skin sparkling with the river, a small smirk playing along her lips, “...bright enough.”

“Your praise overwhelms me, your grace,” Val responded flatly. 

“Anything to please you, my lady.” 

She hadn’t been looking for compliments, Jon knew, but he still felt the need to reassure her. He just didn’t know how. Her experience felt alien to him, foreign, detached, though Jon suspected his sisters would understand. Sansa had been delicate and sweet. Arya had been explosive and wild. They were both still themselves, only wiser, with something darkly calculating shimmering behind their eyes and their personalities, once guileless and innocent, honed as weapons. 

“Did you ever plan to tell me that you were never going to marry?” 

The question gave Jon pause, stunning him as at least half her questions tended to. He hadn’t thought, all those years ago, to presume that there was anything like an understanding between himself and Val. He half expected to return to Winterfell to discover that she had been stolen by a wildling or wed to a kneeler. He half expected her to have disappeared, and that he would never see her again. To his shame, his greatest hope, unvoiced, unthought, unallowed, had been realized: an unattached Val had remained in Winterfell, healthy and happy, somehow a permanent guest of his kin. 

Jon knew, when he saw her. He knew from the shine in her eyes and the soft half smile around her lips that she had waited for him. He knew then that he should have presumed, should have stolen her before he went south, should have made her his woman before Danaerys had set his future aflame. He knew, and he regretted. Jon Snow could have had Val, but Jon Stark could not. And so he kept her at arm's length, and it didn't take long for her to return his coldness in kind, leaving a room whenever he entered, refusing to speak to him, to look at him. Even more years passed, and she still remained unmarried. Jon suspected that she was too independent for a husband, suspected that she didn't want one at all, and never allowed himself to conclude that she still waited for him. 

Jon recognized his inability to tell her that she would never be his as cowardice. He recognized, and he remained silent. 

_Did you ever plan to tell me that you were never going to marry?_

“No.” 

Val's head tipped back against his chest, almost a chastisement, and it was the first time they touched since he'd hauled her out of the water and taken her wet and muddy on the riverbank. 

“You're a coward, Lord Snow.” 

“Yes,” he agreed. 

 

It was dusk when they stopped. They were weary, the pair of them, despite their long sleep. Or, perhaps, because of. 

Val was pulling her pack from the horse when Jon noticed the ring of purple around one of her wrists. He'd agonized all day over touching her, but he reached to take her hand without thinking. 

“Was this...?” Jon remembered taking her roughly, remembered pressing her arms over her head and the hot rush at seeing her stretched out and rendering her helpless. He remembered brutish men throwing her to the ground, intending to cause her pain. 

“It doesn't hurt,” Val replied, soft, soothing. 

It had been him, then. He stared transfixed at the lurid blue, lightly stroking his thumb over the bruise as though his touch could erase it. Val's cool fingers touched between his brows, smoothing over the crease that must have appeared with his concern. 

“I liked it,” she said simply. Jon's eyes met hers, seeking, and found she was telling the truth. The cold shame in his belly warmed, and he wanted, very badly, to kiss her. 

Val pulled away from him before he could, though, preparing for food and rest. They fell into their old routine, excluding fire, and there was a comfort in that. 

The sky was nearly completely dark by the time they finished their nightly rations and chores. Val was walking by him after brushing the horse, probably heading to her sleeping mat, and it seemed the simplest thing in the world for Jon to reach out and curl the end of her braid along his finger, just to see what her hair felt like when it was dry.

She let him untie her hair, let him sift his fingers through it, still just very barely damp from her morning bath. Val seemed to tire of that nearly innocent touch, though, opting after several moments to melt into him, her back warm against his front. Her head pressed into his collarbone, and her small feminine hands guided his own over her body, coaxing him to skim over her belly and fill his palm with her breast. 

“You're beautiful,” Jon breathed, just in case he hadn't told her earlier, just in case she still worried that he didn't find her so. 

She pulled him down for a kiss, and it was sweet, kissing her like that, but the angle was wrong and he suspected that it made her neck ache. He pulled her around to face him and took a moment to look at her in the gathering night, to stroke his thumbs along her cheekbones, to drag his fingertips along the delicate curve of her throat and the slopes of her collarbones, her sternum, her shoulders, her arms. She kissed him again, fisting his shirt in her hands and standing on her tiptoes to reach him while he was distracted by the vulnerable skin of her wrists. 

And oh, gods, if kissing her before had been sweet, kissing her like this was immolating. Her fingers tangled in his hair, stroked down his spine, teased just along the waistband of his trousers, and he remembered belatedly how very much he loved to be touched. Her tongue danced so playfully along his that it was a gentle torture, and he pulled away to free himself from the havoc she seemed intent to wreak. 

Val didn't seem to mind, though, didn't seem at all disturbed. She simply curled her fingers under the hem of his shirt and pulled it over his head. The touch of her hands along his bare chest was ache and warmth and want. 

“I wish it weren't so dark so I could see you better,” she murmured. 

“I'm afraid I'm not much to look at,” Jon replied wryly, thinking of his scars, of how wilderness and wandering had brought him to waste and painful slenderness. 

“That's for me to judge, I think.” Too soon she was wrapping her arms around his neck. She pressed a kiss to his throat, his jaw. She whispered, breath warm in his ear, “Take me to bed, Jon Snow,” and he was devastated. 

Jon did as she asked, brought her to his mat, undressed her with a reverence that was so genuine as to be humiliating, laid her down with deliberate gentleness. He'd been harsh earlier, had been so eager and needy that he'd hurt her. And while he knew that she didn't need him to be careful with her, that she could handle a bit of rough sex, that she _liked_ it, Jon didn't want to see new bruises on her. He wanted to make love to her properly. He wanted to show her the things he would have done to her every night had he the courage to steal her, to make her his wife all those many years ago. 

He took his time with her, kissing her long and slow and deep while his hands roamed. He scraped his teeth down her throat, licked into the hollow of her clavicle, sucked deep kisses into her ribcage before circling his tongue over pebbled nipples. He dipped his fingers between her legs, even while her hands kept his head to her breast, and found her slick with want. She bucked against him and then writhed, the sounds she made the sweetest he'd ever heard. 

And then her hands weren't keeping him at her breast, were instead pushing him decidedly down, and he couldn't stop the grin from tugging at the edges of his lips. He pressed a few kisses down her abdomen, lingering at the tender curve of her belly before she whispered “Jon, don't tease. Don't tease. Just...” Val broke off on a whimper when Jon stroked his tongue through her wet warmth. He set about pleasing her, first crooking one finger inside of her, then two, sucking gently where she was most sensitive. She came apart, pulsing under his lips and moaning so loudly that he had to clap a hand over her mouth lest Ghost should think her in distress or she alert some of the men hunting them. 

“Come here,” she whispered when her pleasure had passed. She dragged him closer, repeating “Come here,” and kissing him so soundly that he was trembling by the time he pulled away to draw breath. 

“Why are you still wearing these?” she demanded, hooking her fingers in the waistband of his pants. “Take them off. I want you in me.” 

Jon groaned, dropping his forehead to her shoulder as his fingers fumbled with his laces. It didn't take long to free him of his clothes, and though urgency sang in his blood, he waited, poised at her entrance, making sure. 

She misinterpreted, though, thinking he was teasing, and she let out an adorably frustrated growl, her hands urging him nearer. “Gods, Jon, just --” 

He slid inside her. There was always something intensely sweet about that first glide, and he had to bury his face in her throat to muffle his groan. His breath was stuttering, aching, desperate warmth trickling down his spine, urging him to move. Val's breath, though... that was frozen in her throat, and she held herself carefully still in a way women awaiting pleasure did not. 

Jon stroked his thumb along her cheek, and wished as she had earlier that the sun was still shining so he could see her better. “Does it hurt?” 

“Yes,” she replied. Jon took a moment to compose himself, because, gods, the _disappointment_. He took measured breaths to temper his desire, and began to slowly withdraw. 

“No!” she exclaimed, her arms wrapping around him to keep him close. “No, don't.” 

Jon's heart was beating too fast. He was confused and achy and hungry, awkwardly trapped half inside of her while her muscles fluttered around him in the strangest torture he'd ever experienced. He fell back inside of her, pulled by gravity and her hands and his want, and, oh, that was lovely, too. He cupped a hand around her hip, keeping himself frozen against the instinct to thrust, dropping his forehead to hers while he panted and shook. 

“I'm just sore from earlier,” she murmured against his lips. “I need a moment.” 

Jon nodded. He kissed her to distract himself from the fire in his blood, let his hands explore her again, reveling in the way her body gave against his fingers. Val, for her part, was no passive recipient, and the kiss turned fierce and longing, her hands roaming over his back and belly and shoulders. If Jon were in a more reflective mood, he'd have to admit that he had forgotten how good sex could be, that it had been far, far too long since a woman had touched him with such naked want, that it had been even longer since he'd taken a woman he genuinely desired instead of just finding someone to slake a physical urge. 

But Val's hips were moving against his in a way that left little room for reflection in Jon's mind, so he withdrew slowly and rocked back into her with just as much leisure, and her head fell back and her spine arched in just the way he wanted. 

He kept his pace as slow as he could manage, swirling his hips every odd thrust just to see if she liked it. Her fingernails clenched into his bicep, his shoulder, and she moaned and sighed, “Just like that. _Oh_.” He savored the masculine thrill of pulling that sound from her throat. 

Too soon, though, he felt him losing himself. Her hips were meeting his, the pace of her breath and the slide of her hands practically begging him to go faster. When she finally voiced her request, her mouth forming the very best word in the world, _more_ , he shook his head, the threads of his control stretched too thin. She was just so very warm and soft and _Val_ that he didn't think he could keep from taking her as roughly as he had done earlier without a careful leash. 

His fingers fisted, twisting and tearing at the grass. “I feel like you're pulling me apart,” he whispered against her throat. 

Val huffed a laugh and replied “I think that's the point.” 

Jon just shook his head again, swirling his fingers over where they were joined, needing desperately to feel her come apart around him, acting on the simple, primal desire to make her feel good. He felt the beginning of the end in the hitch of her breath and the tremble of her thighs. He only needed to help her to the inevitable. Her hips changed rhythm, rolling purely on pleasured instinct as her muscles tightened around him. He captured her lips with his and shivered at the vibration of his own name against his tongue. 

If pleasure had a taste, it was _Val_. 

Jon thought of dragonfire to keep from spilling inside her, because Danaerys had stolen that from him as well. When Val's hips had finished rocking and her body's clenching slowed to delicate flutters, he withdrew. Whether the disappointed whimper was from him or her, he didn't know. He just knew he gasped appreciatively when her fingers circled around his cock before he could even reach for it. His fingers tangled in the grass again, and he was so close it barely took five strokes before he erupted against her thigh. The sensation was sweet enough, but he knew with frustrating surety that it could be so much more intense if he had finished in her, _with_ her. 

That seemed of little consequence, though, when her clean fingers sifted through his hair, threaded through his to replace the grass. She sucked lightly on his lower lip, and he was certain it was something he would never tire of.


End file.
